The Portland daily press., 1887-08-18
BAR HARRoR BELLIES.
AFancy Dress Ball Described In Way
Unusual.
Scientists have a Rod In Pickle for the
American Girl.
A Revy OF Pale and Nervous Pleasure
Seekers at Lynam's.


Hotel Friday night, writes a Bar Har-
Dor correspondent of the New York Times.
1t was for charitable object, ard the tick
cts were two dollars and half apiece. The
local news detective describes it as "a bril-
liam outpouring of our best society,"" and
the local news detective is probably right
The pilgrims to Bar Harbor are all people of
more or less wealth in their home localities.
Consequently they well represent the better
or best class of the people Of the country,
and from this class the attendance at the
party was chosen.
A fancy dress party is social gathering
invented to allow every woman to look her
prettiest in her own way. The costumes
were consequently varied. There were two
elderly ladies under awnings of black lace.
who were confidently supposed TO have in
tended themselves for Ladies Of the Spanish
Court. There was young lady in white
from Greece, and another one in blue There
was an Egyptian young person in coins, a
young lady in slumber robe and cap, exter-
nally speaking, and another young lady who
was decorated with straw and whose mimetic
aim was some portion of the almanac. The
great majority. however. confined them
selves, in addition to their handsome dresses,
lieved to lie in powdered hair and small sec
tlonS Of black court plaster tastefully die
posed about the face.
There were several handsome women, one
handsome girl, and number of round and
pretty ones. The rest of the women, the
great majority, in fact, had faces which
would have been pretty if they had had
physique TO back or brighten them. In fact,
the American society girl was out in force.
She was very well dressed, for she always
Is. III she had no figure she usually assumed
that virtue with great cleyernsss. Her face,
however, was rather thin, and her arms were
delicate. She was, as rule, nervous, and
had somewhat nerv0ns look about the eyes,
When she was in conversation with gentle
man she was bright, animated, and seemed
deeply interested. When he left her her face
usually charged to a listless, If not bored,
look, showing her interest to have been not
natural and real, but courteous and assumed.
The girl and her mother made a very re-
markable pair, one Of the most remarkable
pairs in all genealogical history.
All women desire, naturally, to be beauti-
full. All women desire, naturally, to be fas-
cinating. That the laws of health are the
telligenee ought to know. That the laws of
fascination, other things being equal, are the
laws Of health every smart woman knows.
1t takes wonderful amount of adroitness
and subtle coquetry to counterbalance fat
chest ana scrawny figure when the enslav-
ing of the sterner sex is in question, and
there was never yet woman, however gifted
in those mental directions, that would not
instantly exchange her battery Of charms for
those more purely physical. The two girls
in Greek costumes were . beautiful lesson
last evening. They brought up viyidly in
that throng the era when the corset was an
unrealized igment in the brain of his majes-
ty, Sir Satan, and the considerate sculptor
kindly chiseled for us few models of wo-
manhood to show us in these latter days
what we have lost.
Perhaps the sweet sisterhood will some
day discover the direct relation existing be-
tween their powers Cf attraction aud their
health. A woman is most fascinating when
she presents her personality under its most
alluring conditions of appreciation and SYM
pathy. These conditions depend directly
upon the condition Of her nervous system
and vary directly as it varies. Active inter-
est, mental relish, ready laughter. all the lit
tie brightnesses and quicknesses that make
the sex adorable appear in a measure that is
directly pTOportioned to their conditions of
comfort in dress and surroundings, and any
man who has ever met a belle first in ball
room and afterward in a camping-out party,
has met two different women and will in
dcrse the statement. With all this, however,
daf S9png a9ss ID po% se c9r5pHs 5H t8 M MRas
through summer as well as winter. They
formerly rested in summer, but they have no
time now. When the preliminary signs of
nervous .prostration appear, the drug store
and the doctor kindly tide them over until
they can quietly settle down to matrimony
and a complaint. Their mothers either
know how to guide them better, in which
case their neglect of duty is quite wicked, or
they do not know and are unwise
All this is n0body's business, however
outside of the ladies themselves. If the
women are fashion mad the men are equally
foolish over money, so that the account bal
ances. 1t is not referred to herein with any
hope or desire of bettering conditions or any
wish to waste words in that old fOgy pro-
ceeding of finding fault or giving advice. The
American society girl will continue to lace
and continue to dance while the doctor grad
ually lifts the wreath of gold from the plum
bers brow and distends his medicine bag
with bonds. 1t is tendency Of the time
like great many others, which does not
look very well, but there is visible no pros
pect of check or change. The American So
ciety girl had rather die than be unfashiona-
BILE. She proposes to do so if necessary, and
nobody can stop her. The question is raised
here, not for any purposes of criticism, but
because Of its direct and weighty bearing on
certain very important socal questions which
are OF very general interest at the present
time.
There is group Of problems, including
the great upgrowth of divorces, the alleged
failure of the marriage system, the decline
OF the family. and the social and indeed pO-
litical consequences which will inevitably
enSue.which are at present absorbing quite
number of thinkers who have nothing more
profitable with which TO occupy themselves.
Perhaps 1t would pay these gentlemen to 90
to fashionable party and study our Roman
matrons Of the future for time
Across the water some gentlemen, quite
eminent in experimental science, are prob
ing with wonderful cleyerness into the do
main OF the mind and the thought processes,
including the emotions. They have rod in
pickle for the American society girl that
viii make her brown hair curl without the
use Of irons. They will tell her by and by,
not that she Is doing wrong, but that she is
the most foolish young person extant That
for such chaf in the shape of enjoyment as
she gets, through few years, from fashion
able display she is giving up her absolute
enjoyment of life for all the years that fol.
low. That when a complaint enters the
door, happiness such as is her natural right,
flies out Of the window.
The American business man, mainly
through his preoccupation night and day
with business and partly the barbarisms Of
fried meat and pie, first printed in large let
ters across the national Stars and Stripes the
word Dyspepsia" The American society
woman, not desiring to be left behind in flag
decoration, has gotten ready another phrase
to print below, called NERVOUS Prostration"
at least so the physicians say who write.
Furthermore, according to the scientists,
love and nervous pr0stration are not on
speaking terms. Nevertheless the fancy
dress party at Lynam's was great success
Friday evening, was universally enjoyed,
and according to the local news detective,
was "the most charming event Of the sea-
son."